How are the January sales for you? Lots of Shoppers seem to
be voting with their feet and deserting the High Street in favour of online
sales. ‘Why suffer cold and wet feet traipsing in search of bargains when you
can stay at home and do it online?’ was the thinking behind another Government-supported
attempt to revive our emptying High Streets. First there was the DCLGsponsored ‘Portas
review’, then the ‘Town Team’ competition and the private ‘Grimsey Review’ and now
it’s the turn of the ‘Distressed Town Centre Property Taskforce’ sponsored by
the HM Treasury. You can download it from http://policy.bcsc.org.uk/beyondretail/index.asp It covers the usual big issues – lack of funding, online sales, fragmented
land ownership and parking policy etc and outlines interesting initiatives such
as the ‘retail business incubators’ in Cold Feet Wolverhampton and Tamworth.
Also
how Rotherham provides revenue and capital support for fledgling businesses.
Some Councils like Birkenhead and Rochdale are promoting their High Street Markets
as ‘retail differentiators’ and there’s a good argument to be had about why
this hasn’t happened before. But like the reviews before it this one offers
little else but local policy support for SME’s (‘Small and Medium-sized Enterprises’).
There’s a nice picture of Stockport Market Hall and some welcome discussion of
‘provision of mentoring and...social media for independent retailers and small
businesses’, but I can’t help thinking the review is still missing the
blindingly obvious. SME’s are less deterred by the cost of rent and rates than the
administrative burden of paperwork they encounter as they expand. If HM
Treasury is serious about encouraging SME’s as ‘the engine room of the economy’
then it needs to take a long-term approach to relaxing Vat rules, tax
thresholds, NI and employment legislation which apply to small businesses.
Those costs are outside the control of any independent retailer and a very real
disincentive to growth. You can always negotiate your rent downwards with a
landlord, but just you wait and see what happens when you miss your Vat return.
Didn’t David Osborne promise a ‘bonfire of paperwork’ in one of his budget
speeches? That’s the way to cure SME’s cold feet. Someone else has definitely
got cold feet, MP’s. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority created
to set MP’s pay and expenses in the aftermath of the expenses scandal proposes to
increase MP’s salaries by 11% to £74,000 p.a.in 2015, despite objections by all
parliamentary leaders. The best bit is that MP’s have no way of stopping the increase
unless they change the law they introduced a couple of years ago. Labour has
said ‘any rise in MPs' pay must be considered in the light of...the cost-of-living
crisis facing people across the country’ and the Prime Minister has threatened to
abolish IPSA if it force-feeds MP’s with another eight thousand per annum. He
didn’t mention anything about HS2 though. Great stuff. I wonder how many will
vote in the abolition debate. And finally, some not-so-cold cold feet: German
Scientists have discovered how Penguins manage to keep their feet (and the baby
Penguins which sit upon them) nice and cosy during a blizzard. A similar
problem is shared by many Traders on Open Markets. Apparently the Penguins
bunch together and shuffle around in a sort of Mexican wave whilst squawking
about the weather and how few fish there are to eat, or whatever. This keeps
the ones in the middle toasty warm whilst they struggle not to get shuffled out
to the edge. With cold Teutonic logic the scientists conclude the ‘regulars’
who are skilled at turning up first always secure the best pitches in the
middle whilst the ‘casuals’ who can’t be arsed are left with the worst pitches
at the edge. This sounds very familiar so I can’t work out why scientists needed
to go to Antarctica to confirm it. So leave your moonboots at home and train a
pair of Penguins to sit on your feet. Or if the Toby objects, then seize the
business opportunity and start manufacturing Penguinlookalike boots. Keep
shuffling. Spring is not that far away.
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